Barcelona Mosque: Headquarter For Islamic Terror Cell?

** They were meeting in a mosque — making this yet another story with implications for immigration and the Muslim presence in Western countries, and the un-willingness of Muslim communities in the West to root out jihadists.

“The group was led by the members most well versed in Islam.”

MADRID â€” Ten men arrested in Barcelona on Saturday on suspicion of planning a suicide attack on the city’s public transportation system had intended to carry out the bombing last weekend, a Spanish judge said Wednesday in court documents ordering the men to remain in jail.
The detainees, most of them Pakistanis, were part of an “organized group” that was planning to attack Jan. 18 through Jan. 20, Judge Ismael Moreno of Spain’s National Court wrote.

The detainees include three potential suicide bombers, at least two of them Pakistanis who came to Spain in the past few months, the judge wrote.

He questioned the 10 suspects on Wednesday in the Madrid court, then charged all with belonging to a terrorist organization and some with possession of explosives.

Four others arrested Saturday were released without charge.

Judge Moreno said several suspects were arrested Saturday during a meeting at an unofficial mosque in Barcelona, where the police found materials that could be used in explosives, including nitrocellulose and timers. […]

Its members were followers of the Muslim revivalist movement Tabligh Jamaat, the judge said. The movement professes to espouse a benign, apolitical strain of Islam, but Western intelligence agencies suspect it of recruiting jihadists.

According to court documents, the Barcelona group was led by Maroof Ahmed Mirza, 38, and Mohammad Ayud Elahi Bibi, 36, both Pakistanis and the members most well versed in Islam. Hafeez Ahmed, 39, a Pakistani who spent five months in Pakistan last year, was alleged to be in charge of making and handling explosives.[…]

*

But they’re all innocent:

MADRID – Islamic and Pakistani community leaders in Catalonia have called for the release of 14 South Asians arrested at the weekend on charges of terrorism, arguing that all are “innocent.”

“They practiced Islam with friends and acquaintances. They have no connection with any sort of terrorism,” Afzal Ahmed, the president of the Federation of Pakistanis of Barcelona, told reporters in a press conference yesterday.

* Muslims who follow their religion are always innocent, you filthy kuffar. And you are guilty of unbelief, which is worse than slaughter…

“And you are guilty of unbelief, which is worse than slaughterâ€¦”
i am a muslim, and this is unbelieveable. if they are arrested with bombs and stuff, they are guilty. this is a shame they do, under the name of Islam.
Human life is above everything in Islam, and he says your guilt is bigger than their guilt. i can’t believe these are the guys representing Islam